The Caribbean Community or CARICOM, which has 15 states as members, wants reparations from the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands in an initiative it says is based on diplomacy and engagement, without resorting to confrontation.

“We support the just demand for compensation hoisted by the Member States of the Caribbean Community,” said Ana Silvia Rodriguez, a Cuban ambassador to the United Nations.

“People from the third world are still feeling the effects of the inhuman exploitation of people in their homelands and these peoples clearly deserve compensation for the horrendous crimes committed against their ancestors,” said the diplomat during address to CARICOM officials.

Reparation

Last October, on an official visit to Jamaica, British Prime Minister Cameron acknowledged the “wounds of slavery run very deep” but avoided speaking on the issue of reparation.

Cameron, the first British prime minister to visit Jamaica for the last 14 years, said the slave trade was one “from which history has drawn the bitterest of lessons.”

“Slavery was and is abhorrent in all its forms. It has no place whatsoever in any civilized society, and Britain is proud to have led the way in its abolition,” but offered no compensation.

In late February the chairman of the CARICOM Sub-Committee on Reparations, Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart sent a letter to the British Foreign Office, on behalf of the 15-member countries, for London to formally acknowledge the region’s demands for payment for the transatlantic slave trade.

CARICOM has reportedly given the British office two years to respond to its call, but warned that it is prepared to bring its complaint to the International Court of Justice in The Netherlands.